The return of the Grandparent’s Day Stroll-a-Thon and third annual Ball Drop were a huge success for Mont St. Joseph Home on Sunday.
This was the 24th Grandparent’s Day celebration and first Stroll-a-Thon since 2019.
Resource Development Coordinator Jessica Gale said this was the third time for the Ball Drop but momentum for the event seems to grow and so does the crowd.
“This has been the most fantastic turnout that we’ve had,” Gale said.
“We had a little bit of rain this morning, which kept the skies perfect and the weather wonderful for everybody to be outside today, so it’s great.”
The Ball Drop fundraiser saw 2,290 golf balls dropped from the top of a Prince Albert Fire Department ladder truck for three cash prizes. The Fire Department remained after the Ball Drop to offer tours of their fire engine.
“The partnership from the community is fantastic,” Gale said. “We’ve got a great relationship with Pattison Media and sponsoring our ball drop as well as RBC sponsoring our Grandparents Day and then the fire department coming out.”
Along with the walk and ball drop, a whole array of activities were planned.
“For Grandparent’s Day, because it’s a nationally celebrated day, we want try and make that a really great, fun filled event for our entire Mont St Joseph family, so we invite all of our families to come out and participate with us,” Gale said.
“We have live music with Donny Parenteau this afternoon, we’ve got face painting going on, we’ve got lots of games out in the yard and then we wind everything up with a great big family barbecue.”
Pattison Media as a platinum sponsor of the drop also donated $5,000 and RBC donated $5,500 towards Grandparent’s Day with this years fundraising goal towards enhancing the dining experience at the home.
“This year we’ve geared all of our fundraising efforts towards upgrading and redesigning the way we offer our meal plans in our home to make it more home-like,” Gale said. “(We’re taking one more step away from that institutional feeling and really making this a home … and really wanting our folks to better focus on their entire health care plan, whether that’s emotional, spiritual, physical, the entire income incumbent of health care for them.
This year there were 2,290 tickets sold for the Ball Drop, which raised over $22,000.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
